As Long As I May Not Live
by Sarahaku
Summary: It's been over a century since John died. He can't remember much, not that he's really concerned with it anymore. Lately he's busy with his ghostly things; watching soap operas, harassing cats and birds that live around the apartment complex he's stuck in. And being Dave Strider's best friend. Of course, Dave can't exactly SEE him, or anything, but that's just a small obstacle.
1. Chapter 1

When you've been dead for one hundred and thirty six years, there's not a lot to do anymore. Especially when you, for some unknown reason, have become a ghost. And you're stuck in a ten story tall apartment building in the middle of Houston, Texas. A guy will run out of interesting movies to watch while the tenants are out, eventually. So when a new tenant moves in, it's understandable that it's exciting news for a little ghost.

John Egbert was one such ghost, stuck in a ten story apartment in Houston, Texas for one hundred and thirty six years. And there were only so many times that someone could freak out the neighborhood dogs before it wasn't entertaining anymore. For the most part, he kept to himself. Well enough that only a few crackpots were truly convinced that the apartment tower was truly haunted. Of course, they had good reason. He couldn't help getting bored sometimes. And really, the look on peoples faces when they find the contents of their fridge stacked up in neat pyramids was great when you were hard up for any form of entertainment.

He was making his rounds as usual one day, looking around for something to do in the ten stories, and finding nothing, before making his last stop on the top floor. There was only one apartment up there. It wasn't very exciting. At first there had been a normal little family with the little husband and the little wife and three kids, and all. And lately it'd been empty. But after looking around today, he found boxes stacked up in the kitchen. Intrigued, the invisible blue boy searched around.

There were a few unpacked things here and there, a couch, a television, a bed in each of the two bedrooms. Huh. He sat down in the middle of the room, or more so floated down to the floor with his tail tucked underneath him, blank eyes widened with curiosity.

It was a while before the door opened. John stood back up, flying his way over to them. Safely invisible, he watched them. There was a man, who was toting several boxes. He watched intently. Another person came in, a younger boy, who was holding one box that was partially open, with swords poking out of it at odd angles.

With there not being much to do, John ended up sitting and watching them go through their boxes and unpack. It was a bit more interesting than watching all the daytime television with the old lady on the second floor like he usually did at this time of day. The guys were a bit more interesting than daytime soaps, also. Who needed so many swords? Maybe they were bounty hunters. That would definitely be a change of pace. And what were all these stuffed animals. He couldn't remember any animal like this. Of course, he couldn't remember his own death, either. But if he'd seen something like this, he'd probably remember it. Their noses were ridiculous. He picked one up, inspecting it, but tossed it down quickly when the younger boy entered the room, who just as quickly picked it back up, and flung it out of the room, cursing.

John watched him intently. It'd been a while since he'd seen someone his own age. Or at least, his own age since he'd died. He hadn't seen anyone that was one hundred and fifty one. But stuck in his perpetual state of being fifteen, it was nice to meet a living, breathing fifteen year old. He watched the guy for a while. By the end of the day, he'd figured out that his name was Dave. He had some fancy tables with buttons all over them that he referred to as his "equipment." John prodded at it, but ended up turning it on. Panicking, he hid in the wall until Dave came in and shut it off. Once Dave was gone again, John continued looking around.

There wasn't much in the room yet, a lot of boxes, and a few more fancy button tables. There were also a lot of jars and things arranged on the dresser. John looked them over. They appeared to be fossils and preserved things. That was a little weird. Maybe it was a good thing. Dave liked dead things. John was a dead thing. Perfect.

John ended up spending the rest of the day watching the two unpack. It was the most exciting thing he'd done in a while, really. He decided he liked them. They were interesting. Especially the younger one with the dead things and the loud tables.

Of course, Dave was completely unaware of John being there. Even though, over the past few days, John had decided to be helpful, emptying his room of the stuffed animals that he really seemed to dislike, and moving his clothes to the hamper when Dave was too lazy to do so. Or folding his things, or cleaning up his room, or rearranging his dead things just right. By the end of the week, he was a little more aware of _something _being there, but there really wasn't a way to ascertain that it was a fifteen year old ghost folding his laundry because he was trying to impress someone that couldn't even see him.

John had quickly become enamored with the boy on the top floor. He skipped his daytime television to find little things to do that were helpful. He hardly even noticed that he was freaking Dave out, he was mostly proud of himself.

He was going to be the best invisible friend that there could be.


	2. Chapter 2

**Well hello! Thank you for all the reviews and follows already, it's very encouraging. This chapter is a bit quick, but I hope you like it nonetheless. **

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It should really be almost completely bearable to be invisible once you've been that way for over a century. But it wasn't. Especially when your trying your best to make do but _some _people have to get all worked up because they don't know who put their pants away. John huffed, musing to himself as he sulked underneath Dave's bed. Dave was off at school. The room had become rigged with traps, things that could be knocked over easily by intruders and cameras set up everywhere. Shows what John got for working his butt off for Dave.

John stayed still underneath the bed, resting against the floor. Theoretically, he could phase through stuff if he wanted to, but if Dave _really _didn't want him cleaning the balled up papers off the floor then fine.

So, with nothing to busy himself he decided on sulking. Transparent cheek smushed into the carpet, he grumbled, curling his tail up to his chest. It wasn't _fair. _There weren't even other ghosts to talk to. As far as he could tell, he was the only ghost ever. Or at least the only one in the ten story apartment in Houston.

He couldn't remember being so desperate to get attention in a long time. While Dave cleaned up the cameras and fast forwarded through the video, he shouted in his ear as loudly as he could. His voice was dull and echoing, and completely unheard by Dave.

He looked over at the notebook on the side of Dave's desk. He frowned, slumping down. It was easy enough to pretend he was going to talk to Dave if something he knew wasn't going to work, work. But writing in a notebook would definitely work. And John hadn't talked to anyone but himself in a very, very long time. He doubted it would work out very well.

He tried to remember what it was like. Having friends. But just as every time he tried to remember what it had been like before he died, he didn't get much. Only a faint memory of a pounding headache, and chills. Even that was short, like a clip from something he could play over and over until he felt like he had the same headache all over again.

He watched Dave quietly. Like usual, he was thinking a lot about what to do, but not really coming up with a good plan.

TG: no rose

TG: i swear to fuck

TG: it has to be a god damn ghost

TG: because i dont fold my laundry

TT: I hardly see why a ghost would be organizing your clothing for you.

TG: neither do i but

TG: but clearly they are

TG: maybe it was a maid or something

John frowned, bobbing up and down as he read over Dave's shoulder. He was not a maid! At least, not as well as he could remember. Again, that shit got pretty fuzzy.

TT: Well, you're being awfully rude.

TT: Clearly they are only trying to help, whatever the reason.

TG: so what am i supposed to do

TG: bust out a ouija board

TT: Have you even tried to communicate with it normally.

TG: uh

John backed up, smiling slightly, and nodding at Dave, as though he could encourage him to listen to his friend TT. Dave spun his chair around, looking at the opposite side of the room than John was actually on. John flew over to where Dave was looking for the hell of it. The living boy cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck. "So," he drawled. "Ah. I might just be talking to nobody here and maybe I'm alphabetizing my records in my sleep but… hey." John grinned, positively elated.

"Hi Dave!" He said in his hollow, echoing voice. He was too used to not being responded to to be disappointed.

"Uh. I guess you can probably pick shit up. So, here, there's a pad of paper on my desk. You can write somethin' there or whatever if you want to say hi. Erm, so yeah." Dave looked around the room, sitting quietly. John eagerly went over to the paper, reaching out to Dave's pencil cup, before frowning, pulling his hand away. If he had a heart, it would be hammering. He couldn't do this! Chickening out, he shrunk to the opposite side of the room, curling up sulkily as he heard Dave let out a long sigh. Next time, he promised himself.


	3. Chapter 3

John liked to think that he had been taking the whole ghost thing very well all this time. He didn't even mind not being able to eat food that much, any more. He found it to be no loss that he didn't have to go to school. Really, he'd gotten over the whole never growing up thing about a century ago, anyway. And for the longest time, he thought he had come to the terms with the fact that he was very, very much alone.

But no such luck. He was still pretty pissed off about that part, as it turned out.

So he did the best thing any socially stunted little spirit could do and he sulked. He sulked through the night, tucked underneath Dave's bed. He did the same throughout the day while Dave went to school. And probably made friends with people, because that was what living people got to do..

Getting bored of sitting on the floor with his lip jutted out, John decided to make his normal rounds for once. Everyone was out in the first floor. And the ninth, and the sixth, and the fourth. The lady on the fifth floor was still asleep. There was absolutely nothing of interest going on.

Only on the third floor did he find something worth bothering with. There was a young girl doing some sort of cleanup, and had trashed a bunch of stuffed animals. Uncertainly, John fished around the bag once she was gone, and pulled out a strange, yellow stuffed thing. It looked kind of like a lizard. He stared at it, and it reciprocated the gaze with glassy black eyes. Feeling pretty miffed, he decisively tucked the yellow lizard under his arm and made his way back to Dave's room. There. Now he had a friend. Such as it was. This was what he wanted right?

He sighed, curling his tail up in front of him and setting the stuffed thing in his lap.

He didn't really want to stoop to the level of talking to a banged up stuffed toy. It wasn't even really a nice stuffed toy, the kind with the crappy fabric and the beads in it; the kind that you win as the prize at a carnival. But that was the level he was at, it seemed. After dubbing it Casey, he chatted idly with it for the rest of the day, mostly just ranting to her about anything he could find to say. "And then this dog starts chasing me, and there are like six people chasing after the dog, so I'm getting nervous, just cause, who knows if dogs can bite ghosts, you know? Anyway, the dog-" He stopped talking at the sound of the door opening. Frowning, he tucked Casey back under his arm, listening intently from under the bed. After a moment, he saw Dave's feet as he came in, throwing his bag on the floor.

It was a quiet night. Dave did his own thing. John inspected Casey and cleaned fuzz and dirt off of her. It wasn't until it was getting late that Dave finally dislodged himself from his desk chair and went to get ready to sleep. By habit, John wished him goodnight, and then added a goodnight to his new inanimate salamander. Though, only a moment after crawling into bed did Dave crawl back out, muttering something under his breath. Before John could peek out to see if he could help, Dave looked underneath the bed, pawing around for a moment. John looked around quickly, trying to figure out what it was he was searching for. His gaze fell on a blanket that was just above where John's head was. He had every intent of moving it closer for Dave, but as he was moving, he felt the stuffed toy snatched from his arms. "What the hell?" Dave's voice officially made him aware that this was not good

Thoroughly panicked, John's eyes widened looking around, before crashing upwards, straight through the bed. Dave was squinting at Casey, obviously confused as to when he gained possession of a carnival prize lizard-thing. In his state of frenzy, John snatched Casey back up, and held her tightly, before Dave had the chance to throw her out or something.

Oh.

He probably shouldn't have done that.

Because now there was a stuffed animal that Dave didn't recognize, that had been snatched from his hands, floating five feet in the air. And he was staring directly at the little ghost that he couldn't see. Being as good at handling disaster as he was, John quickly ducked back under the bed, holding onto Casey with a death grip. It was only a moment before Dave was looking back under the bed, and grabbed at Casey again, looking pretty disgruntled. The two boys grappled for the toy for a moment, before Dave let go of it.

There was a very long, awkward silence. Before Dave sighed loudly. "Shit, I don't know who- what you are, or what the hell you're doing. But if you could not drag me kicking and screaming into a state of insanity, I would really appreciate that." After another long, thick period of quiet, Dave stood up, crawling back into bed. John swallowed, inching back further, looking down at Casey like she would tell him what to do.


End file.
